


An Unusual Development

by woodelf



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Stargate Universe
Genre: F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Unicorn!Rush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21540388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodelf/pseuds/woodelf
Summary: There's something growing out of the center of Rush's head. The crack unicorn!Rush prompt that got unexpectedly angsty and serious. Follows on from "The Saga of Fluffy the Space Unicorn" but can be read as a stand alone.
Relationships: Belle (Once Upon a Time)/Nicholas Rush
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RipperBlackstaff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RipperBlackstaff/gifts).



It started with the itching. Absently Rush scratched at the spot in the middle of his forehead, just at the hairline, not thinking anything of it. But it wouldn’t go away. He began wondering if he had been bitten by something on the planet they had just visited, some sort of alien mosquito, perhaps. He ran his fingers carefully over his skin, but didn’t feel any sort of bump or swelling. He tried hard to ignore it, because the brief feeling of relief was always quickly followed by a return of the itching even worse than before, but he was losing his concentration on his task fast, and began snapping irritably at anyone who tried to talk to him. For once he was glad to leave the control room when his shift ended, and made for a restroom and a mirror, pushing his long hair back from his forehead and peering closely at the spot. The skin was reddened, but that was only to be expected after all the scratching he’d been doing. He didn’t see anything else that would warrant the persistent itch. Maybe he was allergic to the new shampoo that TJ had cooked up from the soapwort-like plants found on a previous planet and now being cultivated in hydroponics? it had seemed decent enough, with a fresh herbal scent, and a slight lathering quality. But surely then his skin would be itching everywhere his hair touched, and it wasn’t. It was just that one spot. 

He headed for the infirmary, hoping that TJ would have some sort of anti-itching cream on hand. And if it had been an insect, he wanted reassurance that it was nothing to worry about and that it would go away soon, preferably before he went crazy and gouged a hole in his scalp in a desperate search for relief. 

“I don’t see anything besides the red scratch-marks,” TJ said when she examined him, carefully brushing his hair out of the way. “There might have been an original scratch or bite that started it off that I can’t see because of that. No one else has reported anything similar, at least not yet. If there was an insect, you just might be having a particularly intense allergic reaction to its saliva. I do have some salve that might help, and putting something cold on it can help alleviate swelling and itching, too. And keep your hair brushed back off your forehead; those strands must be tickling it something fierce and you need to stop scratching it or it’ll just stay irritated.”

“They are, and I know,” Rush admitted, feeling his long hair swing forward once again as TJ removed her hand, and impatiently raked it back once more away from his face. “I’ll tie it back with something when I get to my quarters. I just came off shift.“

"All right. Let me clean the area first.” She fetched a folded square of cloth which she’d soaked in a mild antiseptic solution, just in case. “It’s going to be a bit cold; I keep the wound wash in the refrigerator.”

“Oh god, no, that feels lovely.” The cold made the itching lessen immediately, and Rush leaned forward into the cloth with a blissful smile. 

TJ laughed. “See? Cold helps. Lie down with a compress on your forehead if the salve doesn’t help, or soak a folded pad in cold water and tie it on with a headband. Or even something like a cold piece of metal, as long as it’s clean. She held the cloth in place for a minute, enjoying having a docile patient in Rush for a change. When she pulled it away, the cloth had warmed up, and the redness of his skin had gone down. "Looks better already,” she approved, and produced a small jar of salve. She gently spread some over the irritated site, then recapped the jar and handed it to him. “You can re-apply it before you go to bed tonight, and if it’s not any better, or worse tomorrow, come back and see me.”

———————————–

The next day the skin was visibly roughened when Rush checked it in his shaving mirror, a raised area having developed in a neat circle about three quarters of an inch across. The itching seemed slightly less, but it felt a little sore now, too, with a sensation of pressure. He dutifully reported to TJ, who looked at the spot with a frown. 

“I’m going to put some antibiotic gel on it, and give you a tea that has some antihistamine properties. And put a bandage on it. I don’t like seeing something I’m not familiar with, but it does seem confined to a local reaction, which fits in with an insect bite. I’ll do a little research meanwhile today. How do you feel otherwise?”

“I don’t feel sick, if that’s what you mean. Just this.” Rush gestured at his forehead. 

“Okay, well, that’s good.” She put some of the antibiotic gel on a gauze pad and had him hold it in place over the site while she fastened it in place with a strip of clean cloth. “There. We’ve got sufficient water on board, so try drinking a little more, too, to flush any toxins out of your system. And keep me apprised of any changes.”

“Aye, aye, doctor,” he said with a wry salute, and hopped off the padded table. 

————————

The next day something had broken through the skin. He fingered the hard, hornlike material with a sick twisting in his gut, realising that that indeed was what it was. A horn. A horn was beginning to form. They’d visited a planet that had had fucking unicorns on it and now he was turning into one somehow. He put some more antibiotic gel around the base of the horn, where the skin was still irritated, and covered it back up with the bandage. He didn’t go to see TJ. He needed time to think. 

She spotted him, though, as he left the mess hall after dinner, and hailed him with a smile. “I take it I didn’t see you today because your spot is getting better?”

“Ah, well…” He floundered for words. She was going to have to know, eventually. He needed one person on his side who didn’t actually hate him and it wasn’t like he was going to be able to hide it forever. TJ at least he trusted not to immediately freak out about it, and had seen how it started. Plus she was the only one on board who might be able to possibly do something about what was happening. 

She saw his hesitation and frowned. “Is it getting worse? The same?”

“Can we talk in private?” he asked, taking her elbow and shepherding her away from the people passing back and forth around them. 

“Of course. Come back with me to the infirmary.”

He followed her wordlessly to the thankfully empty of other people room, wondering what to say. He’d arrived at the only possible theory that made that slightest bit of sense, _except he knew better_ , and by the time they arrived, he’d given up on searching for words and simply unwound the bandage from his forehead and waited for her reaction. “Diagnosis, Doctor?” he asked wryly. 

She stared, not even disputing the fact that she was just a medic, and then she touched it gingerly, and finally she met his eyes. “Does it hurt still? Or itch? What about the pressure?”

“A little sore still, but not much, and the pressure is gone. Go ahead and say it. What is it?”

“I think it’s a horn,” she admitted. “You’re growing a horn. But I don’t see how –”

“No more do I. But we went to a fucking planet with unicorns and now I’m turning into one. The only thing I can think of – _and I know it’s not possible_ , at least based on everything we know – is that somehow some unicorn DNA got into me, whether from an insect biting one of the beasties first and then me and there was a transference, or some other method which doesn’t really seem to matter right now, because I’ve got a fucking horn growing out of my head and it’s only a matter of time before someone else sees it and freaks out and it’s decided it’d be safer to strand me on another planet to die, which I’ve had quite enough of, thank you very much.” His voice had risen in pitch, taking on a slightly hysterical note, and TJ grabbed him by the hand.

“I’m not going to let that happen. I promise you. Okay? Look at me Nick, okay?”

He took a deep breath and blew it out, making a visible effort to calm down. “Well then what the hell do we do?”

“Well, first, I’m going to take your blood pressure and temperature and a blood sample, so we can see if any changes happen in those things. And secondly, I’m going to do some more research tonight, now that I have something more concrete to go on. If I don’t come up with anything, though, I want to consult with someone.”

“Not Young!” Rush was halfway off the cot, thinking _oh god not Young or Greer or Eli or._..his mind raced through the crew members, wondering who if anyone would be sympathetic to his plight, but TJ pulled him back down. 

“No, this is a medical matter, not a military one. He doesn’t need to know anything for now.”

“Someone via the stones, then? A doctor? A surgeon? Maybe it could be cut out?” he suggested hopefully. “I don’t want SGC to get wind of this, and send someone to study me like I’m a freak!“

” _No,_ someone right here on Destiny. I don’t want to even consider surgery until we’ve explored every other option and better know what we’re dealing with. She’s one of the passengers, a xenobiologist. You’ve met her, haven’t you? Wasn’t she on the last planetside trip with you? Belle French?“

"Oh. Of course.” Relief washed through Rush. “Why didn’t I think of her?”

“Well, it’s been less than a day, and I’d say you might have been distracted by the horn growing out of your head?” TJ suggested wryly. 

“Yes, well, there is that,” Rush admitted. "And I haven’t really known her for that long.” Yet somehow she was already calling him Nick, pausing once in the middle of a conversation to ask if he minded, but not really giving him a chance to answer before she rattled on with whatever she had been saying. But since that had been both intelligent and amusing, he hadn’t bothered to interrupt her. It was nice to hear his name once in a while. For some reason she seemed to actually like him, smirking when he made an acerbic jibe and sharing a healthy dislike for being told what to do unless there was a good reason for the request. Unlike him, however, her warm and compassionate nature was obvious to anyone who spent some time with her. He knew he could trust her with this, that she would put his well-being before anything else. And really, if TJ couldn’t help, she was the most likely person who would be able to. Studying alien life forms was what a xenobiologist did, after all. 

“All right, bring her in on this if you need to,” he said. “Having some alien matter growing out of my head should move me right up in her rankings of “most interesting people on board”."

“It’s what I always look for in a boyfriend,” TJ stated, and Rush snorted with laughter. 

TJ grinned at him, pleased with the success of her joke. “Okay, let’s get those readings.” She slid a blood pressure cuff over his arm. 

It wasn’t until she’d finished and he was walking back to his quarters, the budding horn bump still easily concealed beneath a bandage and the shield of his hair, that TJ’s choice of words came back to him. Surely she hadn’t meant that Belle looked at him in that way…? 

He thought back over their encounters. No, there wasn’t anything that couldn’t be attributed to simple friendship. And yet…bugger it, he’d been looking forward to getting Belle’s opinion on things tomorrow, but now he knew he was going to be looking for any telltale signs of attraction. 

Not that it mattered. He had other things to worry about, like how the hell fast the horn was growing to grow. He slapped the entry pad next to his quarters with unnecessary force and went inside, flopping down on the bed. He folded his arms behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, trying to clear his mind. It didn’t work. A cartoon image of a unicorn with blue eyes pranced across his inward eye, smiling at him in a friendly fashion.

Oh _hell_. Rush swore to himself and sat back up, shrugging out of his waistcoat and pulling his overshirt off over his head with a quick jerking motion. He untied his boots and toed them off, before lying back down again with his face buried in his pillow, wondering how much longer he would be able to do that before a horn was getting in the way. And suddenly he realised why Belle French’s feelings towards him mattered. 

He was scared. Something was happening to him that he couldn’t fix with numbers. This wasn’t a problem that he could solve; he needed someone else to do it for him. It hadn’t been so bad in the infirmary with TJ, while she talked of what she was going to do and researching further into Destiny’s medical databanks. But however much she had risen to the demands of situations for which she had no training, he was pretty sure she was going to need help with this one. 

And right now, alone in the darkness of his room, all he wanted was someone who would hold him and tell him that everything was going to be all right. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which more was requested of the author, actual research was done, and unicorn jokes are made. Also, Belle and Rush grow closer. The rating goes up to M for the second dream sequence (in italics) only.

Rush was critically examining his forehead in the mirror when TJ called him on the radio the next morning.

“Are you up?” she asked when he answered.

“I am,” he replied distractedly.

“How’s the horn?”

“If it grew any overnight, it’s too slight to tell. But the skin around the base looks better, less irritated.” 

“Well, that’s good. I talked to Dr. French.”

Rush grimaced, glad he hadn’t had to be there for that conversation. “And?”

“She wants to see you. Can you come down to the infirmary?”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, straightening up. “Aye, I suppose. I’ll be there shortly.”

When he got to the infirmary, the expectant look that Belle French turned on him made him remember TJ’s words of the night before. “Hi,” he said awkwardly.

“Hi.” She smiled gently, but there was an undercurrent of excitement radiating off of her. “Let me see.”

Rush removed the square of gauze he’d taped back over the small, hard bump that had appeared just below his hairline. Belle reached out and lightly ran her fingers over it.

“Looks like it could be a horn forming,” she said. “Feels like one. This is fascinating.”

“Well, I’m glad you think so,” he grumbled. “It’s not you that’s turning into a freak, though.” Still, the fact that she seemed more interested than alarmed was reassuring, even if she hadn’t done anything yet. They were in a curtained-off area of the infirmary, just in case anyone should walk in.

Belle stepped back, her eyes briefly flitting over the rest of his body before coming back to rest on the horn. “No other changes?”

“If you’re wondering if I’ve sprouted a tail, no,” he said drily. “No other changes.”

She made a face at him. “The horn hasn’t grown any since yesterday?”

“Not noticeably, no.” Rush was grateful for that, at least.

“Could be that the initial fast growth spurt needed to push it through the skin is designed to reduce the number of days suffering from that discomfort. Growth might be slower, now. A long horn on a baby unicorn would get in the way of it nursing, poke the mother in the belly. It might not develop much at all, the first year. I wish we could have stayed there longer and studied them.”

“Well, that makes sense. I don’t know if I could have stood many more days of the itching like the first day. But even if it stays small, I don’t think saying that ‘it’s an irritated bite’ will suffice as an answer as to why I’m wearing a bandage in the middle of my forehead much longer. It’s got to go.“

“There’s more than one factor to consider,” said TJ. “I used the stones to do some research, and found that cutaneous horns are a thing that can form on humans. They’re made of keratin, like your hair or nails, and while usually they’re benign, there’s a 20% chance of them being malignant.”

Rush looked horrified. “Are you saying that – “ The word malignant racketed around in his brain.

“No, almost probably not,” Belle hastened to reassure him. “To start with, we don’t think it’s that kind of horn. It’s presenting in a different way; it looks different. Plus the timing is too coincidental to be ignored. It shows up right after we visited the Unicorn Planet? I really do think that it’s a unicorn horn.”

“But we need to know for sure,” said TJ.

“How do we tell the difference?” asked Rush.

“An animal horn has a bone core under the keratin; a human one doesn’t,” said TJ. “The simplest way would be to try to slice through it with a blade, but we’d have to wait for it to grow a little longer to do so.“

“What? How long are we talking?” Rush demanded.

TJ and Belle exchanged looks. “Another half inch, at least? I don’t want to go playing around right against your skull with a scalpel and have it slip and cut you, not if there’s no good reason to.”

I don’t suppose –” Belle looked at Rush, “– that if it were a unicorn horn, that you would be willing to let it grow, to see how long it gets?” She sounded wistful but not particularly expectant.

Rush looked at her with incredulity. “Are you daft? I’m not some lab experiment. NO.” He looked at her suspiciously. “You were one of those girls who loved unicorns, right?”

“Also centaurs and satyrs and dragons and every other mythical creature,” she admitted cheerfully. “I always wondered if any of them could be real. Considering the existence of dinosaurs, there didn’t seem to be any bar to dragons, and take away the crap about virgins and the horn being able to neutralise poison, and unicorns seemed perfectly possible. Although there are any number of substances which _can_ neutralise certain poisons, so who knows? Anyway, we need to know for sure what kind of horn it is before we do anything further.”

Rush passed a hand over his face. “Any other options?” he asked.

“Not really,” said TJ. “We could try to take a scraping, to analyze under a microscope, but we’d still need more horn to work with. And it probably wouldn’t tell us anything that the knife test wouldn’t.”

“Okay. One week,” he declared firmly. “I will let it go for one week. And then I want it removed. I do not want anyone else finding out and becoming the laughing stock of Destiny. Or worse, have Colonel Young decide I’m some kind of weird danger to the crew and decide to dump me off on the next planet we stop at. I’ve been there, done that. You cut a tracker out of my chest; surely you can remove this.” Yesterday’s feeling of panic was stemmed by Belle’s matter-of-fact acceptance of the horn. It also helped to think of it simply as a medical matter, a growth that needed to and could be removed. He still didn’t want anyone else to find out about it, though. 

“Well, technically, it wasn’t me doing that surgery,” TJ reminded him.

“Yes, but this shouldn’t be a difficult surgery,” Belle piped up. “If a unicorn horn is like the horns of animals like goats or cattle. They grow from two clumps or buds of special tissue located just under the skin. Under normal circumstances, It’s a fairly simple procedure to remove the tissue, ranchers do it all the time. No tissue, no horn growth.”

Rush visibly brightened. “See?”

“I’m willing to try if I can see someone else do it first, via the stones,” said TJ, wishing for the millionth time that she had some proper medical textbooks on board the Destiny. “I guess I can do that this week. Tell Colonel Young that I need to do some more medical research. You do know that I’ll have to tell him, though, if I’m going to perform any surgery, don’t you?”

Rush ran a hand through his hair. “Just…maybe leave out the details?” He asked hopefully. “And not till the last minute?”

“I’ll do what I can,” TJ promised. “And no way will I let him do anything to you. I don’t see any way that this could be contagious, or I wouldn’t be letting you walk around all over the ship. All right. Rush, I want you to report to either me or Belle once a day, so we can monitor any horn growth. We’ll decide what to do at the end of the week.

“Stop by my quarters,” suggested Belle. “It’s more private; it won’t arouse suspicions like someone noticing you coming to the infirmary every day.”

“That’s fine with me,” said TJ.

“Yes, all right,” Rush agreed.

* * *

_He dreamed. The horn had grown, jutting out from his forehead for a good foot in length, surprisingly light, surprisingly easy to lower his head and position the wickedly sharp tip against Young’s chest, over his heart, when he began shouting at Rush, threatening him, pressing in meaningfully. It was unsurprisingly satisfying when Young froze._

_“You’re here to protect the civilians, Colonel,” Rush said softly. “Not run the ship, or tell me and my science team what we can and cannot do. Got it?”_

_Young swallowed hard, a new fear in his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I got it.”_

_Rush straightened, his new power rushing headily through his veins. Somehow, he didn’t feel silly at all._

_“Good.” He smiled._

* * *

The next day he dutifully took himself to Belle’s quarters after his shift was over, preferring not to linger in the company of others longer than necessary, having become paranoid that someone was going to remark on his still sporting a bandage on his head and wanting to see what was under it. The first thing that he noticed was the smell, the usual stale air of Destiny infused with something fresher. It didn’t take him long to spot the wreath of evergreen branches that they had collected on the Unicorn Planet; while the strength of the fresh-cut smell was gone, it was enough to make him take a deep, appreciative breath and want to linger in the room, feeling somehow calmed by it. She had a vase of dried flowers and grasses gathered from some other planet as well, the vase made of the clay they’d found there. Upon its discovery, multiple fires had been built up to bake the plates and bowls and cups that everyone had begun forming, although the lack of a food-safe glaze meant that they had to be careful what they used them for. They’d brought some aboard, too, and a kiln since built, so other things could be made as needed.

“I see you’ve done your best to spruce this place up,” he remarked, and grinned at the unintentional pun. True, the evergreen branches were more like pine than spruce, but it was close enough to amuse him. “It’s nice.”

“Well, I spend a lot of time in here. I haven’t got a full-time job keeping this ship running like you do,” she said. “How’s the horn today?” She brushed his hair back with one hand and lifted the edge of the gauze square with the other.

“No change.” Really, he could have simply called and told her that, but he had wanted to come here. It felt safe; he didn’t feel so horribly exposed and in danger or discovery every time that someone glanced at him. A tiny voice whispered that he also liked having her attention, and the brief touch of her hand on him.

“All right.” She pressed the tape on the edge of the gauze back down, sounding slightly disappointed.

Rush was still looking around, and spotted a clay box that had been made with two grooves in it to hold two rows of disks that had been made by cutting a branch into thin slices. One row of disks had been dyed a darker shade, probably by the berries they had found on the planet.

“Are these for checkers?” he asked.

“Backgammon.” Belle brightened. “Do you play?”

“I have. Chess is more my game, but I’ve played backgammon as well.” An image of Gloria, still smiling and healthy, unlatching the decorative leather case and spreading it open on their kitchen table flashed across his mind.

“Want to play a game?”

She looked so hopeful that he wouldn’t have had the heart to refuse even if he’d wanted – which, he realised, he didn’t want to. “All right; what have you got for a board?”

She opened a drawer and pulled out a piece of cardboard on which she’d drawn the board, but Rush stopped her from closing it immediately, reaching in and pulling out the horn. It didn’t look like anything particularly special, except for that tight spiral reminiscent of a narwhal’s tusk. It was off-white, about 18 inches long, and slightly curved from root to tip. There were sheep and goats and antelopes on Earth who had fancier horns. But it hadn’t belonged to a sheep or a goat or an antelope; it had belonged to a unicorn.

“Not mounted and displayed on the wall?” he asked curiously.

“No,” Belle shook her head. “I couldn’t. An animal had to die for me to have that horn. We needed the meat and there were enough in the herd that we could safely take some without damaging the local population, but it doesn’t change that fact. Antlers that a deer had naturally shed, those I would mount and use for decoration. Not that.”

“What if we had come across the skull of a unicorn that had died naturally?” Rush asked.

Belle thought. “I might put it out in a classroom, or as part of a museum display. Not on the wall of my bedroom, though, staring down at me with its empty eye sockets. I’d rather remember the unicorns in life. Remember Fluffy running to meet her mother?” She smiled at the memory of the young lost unicorn who had been separated from her herd.

“I hope I never forget,” Rush admitted. It was a good memory, the whirling joy of the animals in their reunion had been unmistakable. He put the horn back in the drawer and closed it.

They settled down on the bed with the board between them, and Rush chose the undyed markers. He didn’t mind losing the first game; it had been years since he’d played and he had to refresh his memory in regards to the rules and strategies. When he lost the second game, he decided he’d been playing too nice. “One more?” he asked, refusing to give in to the urge to ask to change colours. It was ridiculous to think that one might be luckier than the other. 

Belle agreed easily, and he set out his pieces again doggedly. This time he ruthlessly sent her pieces back to the bar any time that he had a chance, and just managed to win a closely fought game. “Got you this time,” he declared in satisfaction as he removed the last of his pieces from the board.

“So you did.” She laughed, smiling at him. “Play again tomorrow?”

“Why not?”

* * *

“Request permission to use the stones, sir.” TJ stood in front of Colonel Young’s desk, having requested a meeting in his quarters to ensure privacy. “I need some information regarding a probable surgery that I’m going to have to perform.”

“Surgery! Who? What’s wrong?”

TJ wetted her lips. “The patient would rather not have their identity disclosed. It’s a rather delicate matter, sir. Of a personal nature,” she added and saw him smirk a little. She wondered what he was thinking.

“You mean they would be embarrassed if anyone else learned of it?”

“Yes, sir. Exactly. I’ve been assured that it’s a very simple, common procedure that I should have no difficulty in performing. But I need to see it done, first.”

“All right. Permission granted, and you don’t have to disclose any details about the surgery or the patient unless you encounter any problems.”

“Thank you, sir.” TJ turned and left the room, letting out a breath of relief. That had gone even better than she had expected.

* * *

Rush and Belle fell into a pattern over the next few days. They’d meet at the mess for dinner, then retire to her quarters for an hour or so of backgammon, Belle asking him about his favourite music or foods and what he missed most from Earth. He answered and lobbed back questions of his own. Favourite books? Best childhood memory? It was easy, comfortable conversation as they played, interspersed with companionable silences. On the fourth evening Belle frowned as she noticed something.

“You keep rubbing your forehead,” she said. “Is the horn bothering you?”

Rush took his hand down. “It’s just this stupid irritating gauze, I think. It tickles and the tape pulls at my skin, and I have to be careful not to rake my hair back when I’m around other people so as not to draw attention to it lest someone start asking awkward questions. And while I don’t _want_ it to grow, if that’s what it has to do to get rid of it, than I’d rather it grew so I could get it over with.”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure I want to get it over with?”

“No, are you sure that’s the only reason that you’re rubbing at it?”

Rush hesitated, concentrating. “Actually…no, I’m not. I can feel a bit of pressure right around the horn. I thought it was just a headache coming on, but now that I pay attention to it, it’s very localised.”

Even though she had already checked the horn nub not two hours ago, Belle got up from the bed. “Let me see.” Rush sat obediently, a new, slightly worried look on his face as she brushed his hair back in the now familiar motion and lifted the edge of the gauze. Assessingly, she ran her thumb over the small bump. Was it her imagination, or was it fractionally larger than it had been earlier? She truly couldn’t tell whether it was or simply the power of suggestion. “Okay. You can call me at any time during the night or in the morning if there’s any change.” Impulsively, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his brow after pressing the tape back into place and letting his hair fall forward again. She rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. “You’re going to be okay.”

The memory of her lips on him burned like a brand. Slightly stunned, Rush got up from the bed. “All right.” Greatly daring, he tilted his head and swiftly gave her a peck on the cheek. “Good night, Belle.”

* * *

_Belle dreamed. The horn had grown, only a couple of inches, but long enough that the elegant spiral had started to form, long enough for Rush’s silky hair to part to either side of the horn instead of covering it. Just long enough that when he lowered his head between her legs, it brushed against the nub at the top of her cleft and caused her to jerk and gasp at the sensation. Nick looked up, realised what had happened. Experimentally, he did it again, deliberately, sliding the smooth, hard horn against her flesh, smirking as she moaned a “yes”. He sat up, sitting back on his heels, hauling her legs up to rest atop his shoulders, opening her up to him. And he set to work to drive her crazy, rubbing his horn over her clit with small movements of his head, sometimes on top of it, sometimes alongside it, her flesh swelling out from beneath its hood of skin, pulsing and hard. She called his name, begging for something, begging for more, and he looked up again, his eyes shining in the dim light, and then he bent his head again, and closed his mouth over her, sucking hard, and her back arched off the bed as she came with a scream._

She woke, lying there with her entire body still tingling, staring into the dark as she replayed the dream in her mind before it could fade, feeling an aching emptiness between her legs where she wanted to be filled. She jumped when her radio crackled to life, and glanced at the time as she grabbed for it. Almost eight. “Yeah?” she asked, pressing the talk button.

“Belle.” Rush’s voice came urgently through the speaker. “It’s grown.”

“How much?”

“Enough for it to be obvious under any bandage. I can’t go on shift.” He sounded panicked.

“All right, look, have you called TJ yet?”

“No.”

“Do that. See if she wants you to go to the infirmary or stay where you are for the moment. She can make an excuse for you; say that you have a migraine and need to stay lying down in a darkened room. Call me back and tell me where to meet you. Okay?” She could hear him take a deep breath, could almost see him trying to calm himself.

“Yes, all right. I’ll get back to you. Rush out.”

* * *

With TJ scouting ahead, they got Rush to the infirmary without running into any interference. TJ had had the forethought to bring along an ice pack for Rush to hold over his forehead if they ran into anybody, both to hide the horn and to lend credence to the “migraine bad enough to go the infirmary” story. Once they were safely inside she radioed Varro, ordering him to stand guard outside and not let anyone in while she was performing surgery. The distraction of an interruption and the risk of infection due to germs or illness carried in by intruders made this a not unusual request.

“Hey,” Belle said as she saw him, having been told to go wait for them in the infirmary. “How are you?”

“How do you think?” asked Rush, dropping the ice pack and plopping himself down on one of the beds. The white horn pushed out from between the strands of hair falling over his forehead. He was glad that something was finally happening but also justifiably nervous about it. 

“Oh,” Belle crooned, coming close to inspect the extra half inch of horn that had grown in the night. “That’s nice. It seems to come in spurts; that’s interesting.”

TJ choked on a laugh, and Rush glared at her. Belle turned beet red as she realised the double entendre in what she had said. “Growth spurts,” she clarified, trying to look stern, but her dream was too fresh in her mind for the heat to recede from her face.

Rush looked at her, intrigued. She seemed far more embarrassed than the situation warranted, which raised some interesting thoughts about the reasons for that. He glanced from her to TJ, who simply seemed like she had been in need of a good laugh, and was still struggling to keep her face straight.

“Go ahead, let it out,” he said kindly. “Any other jokes you want to make about the fucking phallic symbol growing out of the middle of my forehead?”

This just sent TJ off into a fresh wave of unbridled mirth, and Rush reflected that perhaps he shouldn’t have paired the words “fucking” and “phallic”.

“I’m sorry; I shouldn’t laugh.” She turned on her computer. “Let me just make a note on your chart. Tell me, have you experienced any unusual urges to go lay your head on any maidens’ laps?”

Belle let out what could only be described as a squeak.

“Not unusual, no,” Rush deadpanned, and was rewarded by TJ’s shoulders heaving as she laughed. He glanced at Belle, and saw that while she was still flushed, her dimples had appeared as she fought back a smile. “I mean, could the metaphor be any more obvious? Ah, so that’s why you wanted to see how long it would grow,” he teased her.

“Nick!” Belle smacked him on the arm, outraged but also glad of the unexpected laughter that they had found in this moment. “You have a filthy mind!”

TJ giggled, but waved her hand for order. “Okay, this has all been fun but we really need to get down to business. I’m going to try to slice through the horn. Rush, lie down and hold as still as possible. Belle, help hold his head steady.”

TJ fetched a scalpel and wiped both it and the horn off with a pad soaked in alcohol. Carefully she pressed the blade into the side of the horn, the scalpel easily cutting into the keratin. Then it stuttered to a halt. “Oh yeah, that’s what I want to see,” she said with satisfaction, pressing a little harder to be sure and continuing to meet resistance. She pulled the scalpel back out. “Bone core. Animal horn. No worries about malignancy and it should be easily removed.” Belle beamed and Rush rather regretted the loss of her hands as she removed them from the sides of his head, her fingers sliding out from beneath his hair. He sat back up. “Now what?”

“I’m cleared to perform the surgery so we just have to get you sedated and get to work. I’d really prefer to have an extra pair of hands around in case something goes wrong, but Belle and I have gone over the procedure and if we don’t run into any complications, there shouldn’t be a problem.” TJ began setting out the supplies she would need on a metal tray.

“What kind of complications?” Rush demanded.

“Like this thing being attached to your skull rather than a loose bit of easily excised tissue,” TJ said. “And I will tell you now, if I run into something unexpected that I don’t know how to deal with, I will be sewing you back up and leaving the horn alone until I can figure out how to proceed safely. Understand?”

Rush hesitated, looking as if he wanted to say something, but then gave a jerky nod. “Understood.” He could always grind the goddamned thing down if he had to. “How did you get Young to agree to it? He hasn’t said anything to me.”

“Didn’t tell him it was you. Said it was a simple procedure of a personal nature and that the patient didn’t want others to know about it. I’m pretty sure he was thinking about hemorrhoids.” She smirked. “Although considering the lack of fiber in our diet at first, that wouldn’t have been a bad guess at one time.”

Before long, Rush was lying down on the bed again, an IV feeding the anesthesia made from the alien worm venom through his veins. The last thing he remembered before unconsciousness claimed him was Belle holding his hand reassuringly.

_He dreamed. He was lying with his head in Belle’s lap, her fingers combing through his hair, her hand stroking repeatedly over his head from crown to nape. It felt nice, soothing, peaceful. He stretched his neck out, inviting her caress, a purring rumble building in his throat. He closed his eyes…_

…and opened them, to a dim overhead light and the hiss of Destiny’s air systems. He was lying on a bed in the infirmary, and Belle was beside him, stroking his hair, leaving off and reaching for his hand as he automatically lifted it to feel at his forehead.

“Don’t touch. It’s gone. Everything went smoothly.”

Rush lowered his arm, noting the band-aid where the IV line for the anesthetic must have gone in. “Where is it?” His throat was dry, and he tried to sit up.

Belle helped him, stuffing some pillows behind his back and fetching a mug of water and a small jar. She waited until he’d drunk before holding up the jar to show the small horn inside. “One baby unicorn horn. Do you want it for a souvenir?”

“Are you calling me a baby unicorn?” he teased, relief making him giddy as he took the jar and studied it from a new perspective. He could see the twist just starting to form. 

Belle opened her mouth to say that wasn’t what she’d meant, then grinned mischievously. “Yes. Nicholas Rush, baby unicorn.”

He growled and made a grab for her, but she moved back quickly, grinning, and he let her go as he felt suddenly wobbly. 

“I’ll go get TJ, let her know you’ve woken up,” she said.

He held out the jar. “Here. You can have it if you want it.”

“Really?” Belle looked delighted. “Maybe I’ll turn it into a keychain.”

Rush snorted. “For what keys?”

“I’ll ask Eli if he can make me a personal spacecraft to zoom around in, like on the Jetsons.”

“He would love that,” Rush acknowledged.

TJ appeared, having heard their voices. “Good, you’re awake,” she greeted Rush. “How do you feel?” She sat down on the edge of the bed and slid a blood pressure cuff over his arm.

“All right, I guess. A bit dizzy when I moved too fast a moment ago.”

She nodded. “The sedative should wear off completely within the next half hour. Just lie still and relax.”

“Do you know me, Lieutenant?” he asked wryly. “I’m not good at the ‘lie still and relax’ thing.”

“You can talk to Belle. Play word games, work out equations in your head, I don’t care. Just don’t move around. I’ll check back on you in a bit, and if I feel confident you’re not going to topple over on the way back to your quarters, I’ll release you on one condition.”

“What’s that?” he asked cautiously.

“Belle goes with you. I don’t expect any problems, but I want someone keeping an eye on you for the next few hours at least. Remember, you’re supposed to be suffering from a migraine; no one is going to expect you to show up for work today. So take it easy. I’ll swing by around dinnertime to change your dressing and make sure everything still looks fine. If it does, you can go back to work tomorrow.”

“The bigger bandage is going to be noticed,” Belle pointed out.

“You can say a bit of dirt got embedded in your bite when you scratched it open, and it got infected,” TJ offered. “And that I had to lance it open and dig it out, but it should get better now.”

“Thanks,” Rush said gratefully. He’d already cut back on his work hours in the past week, there was no way that he was going to miss more than one day of his shift in the control room.

“I can bring over my backgammon board,” Belle offered.

“I have a chess set,” Rush countered.

“I never really liked chess,” Belle admitted.

“When was the last time you played?”

“In my teens?”

“Give it another chance?” he coaxed. “If you still don’t like it, we can go back to the backgammon.”

“All right,” she agreed. “That’s fair enough.” They really needed a wider variety of games to play on the ship, she thought, and wondered what others she could recreate. It would hardly take any clay at all to make some dice, or tiles.

TJ said she would check back on Rush in a little while and left them alone.

“So, I don’t suppose you’ll have any excuse after today to stop by in the evening for a game of backgammon, huh?” Belle looked down as the realisation struck her. 

Rush thought of the hours of easy companionship, the feeling of having someone to come home to at the end of the day. He shook his head, and reached for her hand. “Since when do friends need an excuse to hang out together?”

Belle looked back up, her smile bright and blinding. She linked her fingers with his and squeezed.

“They don’t.”


End file.
